OK; I don’t mean from the factory, but when will the last dealer-installed vinyl-topped new Caddy be made? Seeing this STS on the streets of Eugene made me wonder, but since it’s not exactly new I decided to do a bit of research:

Someone (That Hartford Guy) has already found a 2013 XTS with a vinyl top. Ok; the XTS does skew a bit to the older demographic. How about the CTS?

Bingo. A CTS Coupe with vinyl top,as well as whitewall tires. I couldn’t come up with an ATS, yet.

But the real test will be if if anyone makes a kit for the plug-in gas-electric 2014 ELR. Photoshop, anyone?

My dad used to work at a Chrysler-Jeep dealer, and when the LX 300 launched he said DCX was pleading with dealers not to offer add-on vinyl roofs or fake convertible tops. at $2k a pop, the dealers said “Yeah right.”

That same plea was made and ignored by Lincoln dealers with the new 1990 Town Car.

Phil b

Posted July 12, 2015 at 8:25 PM

My cousin found that out the hard way.When the LM dealer told him it was not available on the `93 Town Car, he said it was a “dealer option”,meaning that if he wanted a vinyl top or simulated convertible top, it would cost about 2500.00. He went for it,and the dealer probably laughed all the way to the bank.He saw him coming.

Unrelated to Cadillac but someone told me, some elderly owners of Lincoln Town cars ordered vinyl or carriage tops so their cars wouldn’t be confused as “car service” vehicles. I suppose that would have applied to DTS Caddies as well. Defiantly in the same category as chrome grills and bumpers.

“This ATS, which is at Sewell Cadillac of Dallas, Texas has $14,527 in dealer installed extras. That includes such popular items as tinted windows, custom wheels and tires, and a $9,995 “custom carbon fiber wrap.”

Saw a current-model Regal with fake convertible top on I-95 in Delaware today. The tennis-ball-sized satellite radio antenna was poking through the back, making the illusion of a convertible even more implausible.

I hate vinyl roofs, they are ugly and costly to replace. There was a time when vinyl roofs were a fad in many cars. Up the street from me a person owned a 92-96 Camry sedan with a vinyl roof. When i was an oil changer at Performance Pontiac GMC Buick in Maryland while going to school, they were selling a brown 1992 Ford Tempo with a brown vinyl top.Here is a pic on the net of a Tempo with a vinyl top

The whole point of a vinyl roof was to mimic the look of a convertible on a two-door, hardtop, pillarless car. Ford and Pontiac even went so far in the early sixties to have a crease in the roof above the rear window that gave the appearance of a convertible spar.

But, today, convertibles are few and far between, there are no more hardtops (or even many two-doors), the rake of the rear window is so horizontal on just about everything, so a vinyl top doesn’t mimic anything or improve a car’s appearance in any way. As someone else mentioned, a vinyl top might work on retro-styled cars like the Challenger and Camaro, but even then, there’s issues with covering the ends. Original vinyl top cars had lots of chrome trim to cover stuff like the drip rails and rear window surrounds. New cars don’t have any of that.

Some padded tops are intended to look like convertibles, but there’s also a similarly strong association with limousines and formal cars. Derham was big on that for its formal conversions; there were some postwar Packards like that, among others.

I must say, based on that picture, that XTS with the padded roof doesn’t look half bad. Maybe it’s the color combo…
The CTS coupé by contrast looks pretty bad, specially with the white walls. I’ve seen CTS sedans with the padded roof not look as offensive, but still a weird sight.

Here’s the complete (not paraphrased) version of the quote. Authored by the noted critic and curmudgeon, H. L. Mencken.

“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”

Never. As long as there is bad taste, there will be these things. Back in about 1999 there was a new pearl ivory Town Car Cartier running about town–with a hideous dark brown fake convertible top–with a power glass moonroof set into it! Ugh, way to screw up a $50K car, buddy!

On a few cars – the earliest X-body Seville and Volvo 262C Bertone coupé come to mind – the vinyl top hid a welded seam where the roof was extended or chopped.

These were relatively low-volume models, so a separate dies weren’t made for the unique roofs, at least not initially in the case of the Seville. That changed in 1977, when it became apparent that the Seville was a success, and Cadillac switched to a one-piece stamping for the roof, which ended mandatory vinyl roofs for that model.

“So When Will The Last New Cadillac With A Vinyl Top Be Made?” Today at the latest, but that’s wishful thinking.

The only time I have ever been fooled by a vinyl top was on a Ford ZX2, believe it or not. Someone in my neighborhood owned one, and I thought it was the real deal for a while, since it would make sense that Ford wanted to compete against the J-Body convertibles and the Sebring. It was badged “SC200”, and I thought this stood for ASC, the famous convertible company. I never looked to closely at the car, however; I honestly tuned it out.

Not too long ago, I saw a Celica convertible (which WAS made by ASC) and thought to myself – “hmmm, I haven’t seen the Ford one in a while”. Imagine my surprise when I looked up “Ford SC200” and discovered I had been looking at a vinyl roof all those years! I had been fooled by a freaking DEALER!

The modern Caddy’s, not so much with the vinyl roofs, especially with the 2 doors, it just doesn’t work due to the angular design of these cars, and their very shallowly raked rear glass and the back pillar that tapers.

The vinyl roofs here look like they are separate from the car itself, instead of looking integrated like they usually do when done well.

Vinyl tops and modern car designs just do not go, I can’t understand why it’s still offered. It’s not only gaudy to begin with but to me totally goes against the sporty styling. On a big, curvaceous, floaty land yacht it works, but on anything new it doesn’t work at all. It’s like wearing dress shoes with shorts, or sneakers with a suit. Always ugly! Cadillac is the reason why we need Oldsmobile. Cadillac is too flashy and gaudy and Buick is just too eccentric.

I’m 47 and I’m certainly not in Florida, but I like the last model Eldorado. A nice clean factory Eldorado. Not with add-on gangsta stuff, and that includes a vinyl top.
In my humble opinion the Eldorado was the last “true” Cadillac.

Now I only see Cadillac impressions of a BMW. Why bother ? The Bayerische Motoren Werke already builds them.

And if they were still building 96 Eldorado’s everyone would be complaining that they aren’t sporty enough, if the sun shines, it sucks, if it rains, it sucks, some people are just never happy with anything. Cadillacs have gotten sportier, sorry, even I don’t think they could still sell a Brougham d’Elegance, but the new Cadillacs have sharp aggressive lines, and high performance, evocative of the era from the 1930’s to the 1950’s when Cadillacs were some fastest cars on the road.

Almost all of BMW’s line up is bland blah compared to a CTS-V coupe, if you don’t want to look at the new Cadillacs, frankly, its your loss, not theirs.

I really like the XTS–especially in white diamond, dark red or dark blue. And my local Caddy dealer got in their first ’14 CTS. That one is quite sharp as well. For some reason it reminds me of a ’76 Seville, even though the lines are quite modern and not retro at all.

I know this thread is old as dirt but I’m wondering if anyone knows the last time the faux convertible top was an actual option offered by Cadillac? I’m looking at buying an 05 Deville for a song and it’s got a beautiful blue vinyl top on it which I totally love for all the wrong reasons but I can’t find it listed as a factory option anywhere.